by A. R. Breck
I miss my son. He would know what to do.
I have no idea what to do.
I weep, praying for some kind of mercy. I can't take this anymore. I don't know how much more I can handle before I break myself.
Before I know it, paramedics are rushing through the door with a stretcher in hand. They shove me out of the way. I stumble back and watch as they open her eyes and shine a light in them.
“What is she using?”
I swallow, feeling like it’s somehow my fault even though I just found out about this moments ago, “I walked in on her snorting cocaine. I also saw some stuff sitting on her nightstand there.”
They look at me accusingly and nod their heads.
Like I’m the one that provided her the drugs.
Aeron.
I know he’s at the brunt of this issue, and more than anything I want to drive down to that jail and make them keep him locked up forever.
He’s a bad seed.
He hasn’t always been this way. He used to be much like Aric. A good kid, really. After his mom died, he went down the rabbit hole of drugs and crime and hasn’t ever found his way out. I think he likes it there. I’ve tried so hard to help him, whether it’s by going to treatment or going to jail. I’ve coddled him in jail and I’ve completely shut him out while he’s in jail. Both scenarios he ends up back behind bars.
I can’t… I can’t keep doing this with him. But now it’s serious, because now he got my best friend’s child hooked on drugs as well.
“Her nose is looking pretty bad, too.” The paramedic says, shining the light into the nostril that has blood dried around it. “We’ve got to take her in, run some tests and get her head patched up.”
“I‘ll be right behind you.” I say.
I watch as they lift Mercy, her limp limbs hanging at her side. It makes my face pale.
She looks dead.
“Is she going to be okay?” I ask them, a lump the side of a boulder sitting in the back of my throat.
I can’t lose her, too.
One of the paramedics looks at me with a frown. Why is everyone looking at me like it’s my fault? “I don’t know. She needs some help, and I’m not talking about just medical attention right now.” He lifts his eyebrows, and I get his message.
I give him a nod.
Once she’s strapped in and secure, the paramedic speaks into his walkie talkie and they start shuffling out at a much faster pace than they were moving in here.
I watch in silence as they move through the house and back out to the ambulance. A few nosy neighbors poke their head out, and I give them a frown when they look on accusingly.
“We’re heading to Memorial down on First Avenue.” One of the paramedics say.
“Okay.” I nod at them.
When they hop in their car and peel out, I rush back into the house and grab my keys, slipping my shoes back on and hop in my car.
“She has to be okay. After everything she’s been through? She’ll be okay.” I whisper to myself, gripping the steering wheel as I make my way to the hospital.
If she’s gotten through everything in her life and is still breathing, she can get through this.
“She’ll be okay.” I affirm, certainty settling in my bones.
I might be a little selfish right now, but I need it. Because a part of me needs Mercy, for me. I’ve lost so much in my life, and I’ll be damned if the world is going to take her from me, too.
24
Mercy
White lights. Through my eyelids, I can tell the room is too bright. My eyes crack open, and I feel an immense amount of pain as I try to adjust my body.
Where am I?
I glance around the room, and once my vision clears, I can tell I’m in a doctor office. No, a hospital room.
A hospital room?
I attempt to sit up but am immediately hit with head pain that shoots to my eyes.
“Ow!” I croak, which only hurts my throat when the word tears through my unused vocal cords.
Fuck, how long have I been here for?
“Oh, no! Mercy, you’re awake. Hold on, let me grab the doctor.” Some woman in scrubs who I’ve never seen before says. I barely see her with her sprinting in and out of here as fast as she does.
I lean back, giving a mental assessment of every part of my body. I wiggle my toes, move my legs, wiggle my fingers, pinch my stomach and arms. Once I get to my head and I try to move it, pain lances through me again. I reach up and come in contact with a bandage on my forehead.
For a moment, I wonder if Dave, Aeron, and Aric have been part of my imagination and I’ve been in the hospital since the accident this entire time.
My heart speeds up.
Maybe my parents are still alive.
Before I can think of what happened last, a tall doctor with white hair walks in, Dave walking in right behind him. My heart stops.
Nope. Not a dream. My parents are still dead.
“Hello, Mercy. My name is Dr. Kaplan. How are you feeling?”
“My head hurts.” I rasp.
He walks over and listens to my heart, looks at the monitor that I’m hooked up to and then walks over to the computer.
“Mmm.” He mumbles.
I look at Dave, and he does everything in his power to ignore my line of sight.
Panic seizes me, and I start getting worried.
He’s kicking me out. What did I do?
“Do you know what happened, Mercy?” Dr. Kaplan asks.
I shake my head. “No. I don’t remember anything.”
Dr. Kaplan looks over at Dave and then looks back at me. “You really don’t remember?”
My heart sinks. “No.” I say, but then freeze. What is it that’s making me feel like I’m missing something?
It’s like there’s something missing. Or someone.
“Where’s Aric? What’s going on?”
If possible, Dave’s shoulders drop to the floor. I didn’t notice before, but there are impossibly large bags sitting underneath his eyes. His face is pale and he looks like he hasn’t slept in days.
Dave swallows, his Adams apple bobbing repeatedly. “Aric died, Mercy.” He rasps.
I freeze. Gripping onto my bedsheets, I choke out a silent, “No.”
But I know it’s true. I can feel it in my gut.
Suddenly, flashbacks come to me at rapid speed.
The beach.
Aric ignoring me.
The Pit.
Aeron leaving.
The shooting.
Aric protecting me.
Aric dying.
Aeron blaming me.
Going to jail.
Dave picking me up, looking defeated.
It’s my fault.
Feeling helpless.
Taking my entire stash.
Ready for the pain to be over.
I look up through my blurry eyes into Dave’s, watching as his watery smile gazes back at me.
“Oh my God.” I cry.
Dave walks over to me, wrapping his arms around me and holding me tight. “It’s okay. Shh.” He rubs my back, but it does nothing to calm the pain.
“It’s all my fault!” The pain hurts so bad. It’s like I’m reliving this all over again. I completely forgot about it all, but now that the memories are coming back, I have to relive his death all over again.
The pain is unimaginable.
“Remember what I told you about that?” He asks.
I nod my head.
“Okay. I don’t want to hear it again.” He says with finality. The pain in my chest is horrible. It feels like someone is stepping on me with nail-cleated shoes.
Excruciating.
How am I supposed to move on from this?
Dr. Kaplan clears his throat. “Mercy, you came in here with quite a cocktail of drugs in your system. How long have you been using?”
My face pales and I open my mouth to come up with a bullshit excuse. Glancing at Dave’s face, lying deflates out of me. My s
houlders slump. “A while.”
Dr. Kaplan sighs. "You had a seizure, Mercy. The level of drugs in your system was high. Very high for someone of your age and your size. I don’t see this level or mixture of drugs in someone twice your size. That, and you had alcohol in your system, too. It set off a seizure. You hit your head and got a concussion. You’re lucky Dave was in your room when it happened. I can’t say we’d be having this conversation today otherwise.”
I swallow, my face paling at the seriousness of this conversation. The seriousness of what I’ve done.
I tried to kill myself.
“Am I okay?” I whisper.
Dr. Kaplan gets a kind smile on his face. “You’re fine. I can’t say it will be the same if you continue on this path, though. We took some tests, and everything turned out to be okay. We had to pump your stomach to get you cleaned out and you have a mild concussion. We had to stitch up your forehead.” He looks over at Dave and gives him a nod. “I’ll let you guys talk about next steps.” He logs out of him computer and leaves the room.
Dave looks at me with worry.
Shit, what have I done? Did I really try to kill myself?
Is that what I really want?
“I didn’t see it at first, but it’s been quite clear for a while now that something has been going on. I know I haven’t been around as much as I was hoping, and I haven’t been a very good… parental figure to keep things steady. I’m sorry. I know I’m partly at fault for the issue here. But I care about you, so deeply, Mercy. I only want what’s best for you.”
My eyes well up as I look at Dave. I feel so broken all the sudden. It feels like pieces of me shatter at my feet. I look up from the ground into my face and see a person who looks like me but is so not me.
“I think after everything that has happened with your parents; I should have had you see someone. A therapist or something. It was wrong of me to not take care of you in that way.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It is, though. And it was wrong of Aeron to manipulate you when you were so vulnerable and in such a dark place. I had no idea this was happening under my roof.” His face turns red in anger, and I feel a need to defend him.
“Don’t blame him. It was me. I was begging for it.”
Dave winces and clears his throat. This obviously isn’t what he wanted to hear. It doesn’t matter, because it’s true. I jumped from taking some pills to him being my supplier for cocaine. He didn’t willingly give me anything, I asked for it every step of the way. I won’t let Aeron take the blame, even if he does deserve to rot in hell.
“Why would you try to take your own life? You really wanted to end it, just like that?” Dave asks, disbelief clear in his voice.
I look down, ashamed for being this person. Ashamed that I put Dave through even more pain. “I mean, I sit here and think no, I don’t want to die. But another part of me does, because I keep losing people and it hurts. It hurts so bad, Dave.” I press my fist against my chest, wanting that pain to go away so badly.
He shakes his head in sorrow. “I wish you would have told me you’ve been struggling like this. Didn’t you think I could handle it? I didn’t take you in just to throw you aside. You’re a part of this family, just because you’re not blood doesn’t change that. I love you, Mercy. I’ve just lost my son, please don’t let me lose you, too.”
I sob chokes out of me, and I raise my arms for him. He walks into them, and we hug tightly. I grip onto him, never wanting to let go.
How selfish of me to think I could take the pain away so easily. To leave Dave after he’s just lost his son.
I’m a horrible person.
“Do you think this is what your parents would want for you? Using drugs like that? Trying to take your own life?”
I break down at his words, feeling so lost without my parents. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe I shouldn’t be using. I mean, not maybe, because I know I shouldn’t do it. If I would have seen someone snorting cocaine last year, I would have run the other way screaming. But, now? Now I don’t know how to function without it. I haven’t really given myself a moment to think about what I was doing. I enjoyed feeling numb.
I enjoyed not feeling at all.
But worst of all, I just wanted to go be with my parents again. And Aric.
But when I think about it, that’s not how it’s supposed to be. It’s not up to me to decide when I die.
My tears flow again, and this time Dave scoots over and wraps his arms around me, pulling me to him and giving me the fatherliest hug I’ve had since my parents died. I melt into him, feeling broken and complete at the same time. I miss my parents. I miss them so bad.
After a few moments, he leans back and says, “So, I have a plan. You need some help, and I want to give you as much of it as I possibly can. I’ve set up a room at a nearby treatment center–”
“I’m not that bad! I can stop!” I cry. He wants to send me away?
“It’s not just for the drugs or trying to take your own life. You haven’t really had time to process your parents’ deaths since they passed, and I think you need to work on yourself for a while. You need to go and get some help, Mercy. Come back to me healthy.” He pleads with me.
We all sit in silence. I mull it over, thinking of being in a treatment center with a bunch of crazies.
“Can’t I just go to a weekly therapist then?”
Dave shakes his head. “Please, Mercy. I’ve been through this with Aeron. I can’t go through this with you, too.”
More silence. Minutes go by as I think about what to do. I don’t want to go, obviously, but do I have any other choice?
“And if I say no?”
He frowns. “If you don’t agree to these terms, I’m not going to be able to let you stay here. I just… I can’t allow another Aeron situation. See how well that turned out?” He laughs a very sad laugh.
“I’m not Aeron.” I defend.
“I know you’re not. But at the end of the day, I’ve seen what death and drugs can do to a person, and I’m not, even for a second, going to allow you to get to that point if I can help it. I can help it right now, Mercy, and I’m begging you. Please go to treatment. Please. I’ve already set something up and it’s ready to go.”
“When?” I mumble.
“Tomorrow. We’ll check out here and go check in there around noon.”
Silence.
I glance at Dave and see so much pain reflected back in his eyes. I question whether he really cares for me or if this is his way of clinging onto the only child he has left. Is he thinking he can save me, and that will make him feel better about Aeron? It’s not Dave’s fault that Aeron is the way he is. We all make our own decisions. If Aeron wants to be a fuck up, nothing will stop him from being one.
What do I do in this situation, though? Do I leave here? This is an out, and I can very well take it and go do my own thing. No strings.
Except, how do I allow myself to walk away from this… family that I’ve built here? People that would basically do anything for me, including sending me to treatment so that I can get better?
Maybe I do have a problem, I think. As I sit here and look back at the last few months, they’ve all been a blur. I can’t pinpoint a moment when it got bad, but it did. It got bad to the point where I’ve been dependent on taking the pills and snorting coke every day, just enough where I don’t have to feel the pain and loss that sits deep inside of me.
Then last night? Last night I seriously tried to take my own life. I was honestly ready to leave this world. I didn’t give myself a moment to think about it. My sadness was so deep nothing could have changed my mind.
“Okay.” I say. I don’t want to be in that situation ever again. I never, and I mean never, want to feel like the only way out is death. I can’t do that to Dave, and I refuse to do that to myself.
His eyes go wide, like he thought this would have been a much bigger struggle than this. “Really?”
I nod my head through the pou
nding. “Yes. If you don’t mind, I’d like to take a nap.”
He wipes his eyes. “Yes. Of course. I’ll go finalize the arrangements and be back in a while.” He starts walking towards the door when a thought pops in my head.
“Dave?”
He turns around. “Yes?”
“Have you talked to Aeron?” I don’t know why I had to ask, but I did. I hate him for how he treated me, but I can’t help the pang in my chest for what he must be going through.
He lost someone, too.
Dave’s forehead crinkles as an angry look crosses his face. “Mercy… I think it would be in your best interest and everyone else’s if you forget about him. Just forget about him, okay?”
I bite my lip and nod. Dave leaves, shutting the door quietly behind him. After a moment, I release my lip and let out a painful gasp.
Forget about him.
Forget about him?
How can I forget about Aeron. Yes, he’s got bad qualities. No, he’s not perfect. But it’s Aeron. The fact that he said that in the first place makes me question if he really knows his son. Once you know Aeron, I don’t think you could ever forget him.
I could never forget Aric, either.
Aric is almost too good for this world. He didn’t deserve to be around my tainted personality and Aeron’s bad lifestyle. He didn’t deserve any of the things he had happen to him.
I’ll never forget you, Aric.
Knock, knock.
I wipe my tears and let out a huff, not ready for more company. The door opens without me saying anything.
Of course.
“Hello, Mercy.” Comes a ringing voice from the doorway. I glance over and see my social worker, Linda standing in the doorway.
“Linda, what are you doing here?”
She scoffs. “Well, when something like this happens, I’ve got to come and do a check in.” She walks in and sits in a nearby chair. “What happened, Mercy? Out of all the kids, you were the least one who I would think would get yourself into this mess.”
I look down, embarrassed all over again.
“What happened, Mercy? Is this family not a right fit for you?”
I look up, tears staining my eyes. “No! This family is right for me. I love Dave, Linda. He’s been great. And it has nothing to do with him. It has to do with me. I just… it’s hard to keep living every day when my parents don’t have that choice. And then Aric…”